Music

Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution

Mirage lounge teams with LA station, beefs up live calendar

Spencer Patterson

Interpol at the Mirage? Not yet, but the way things are going at The Beatles Revolution Lounge, it might not be long.

The club, which began hosting live music late last year, has teamed up with hip LA radio station Indie 103.1-FM in hopes of bringing quality out-of-town acts to the cozy, 300-capacity venue. “We’re fighting the war on Top 40,” Dave Pappas, executive director of nightclub operations and marketing for the Mirage, says with a laugh. “The minute you inject music, the room changes. You can see the stage from almost anywhere in the room. And as we move forward we’ll be bringing in some of the bigger and better bands out there.”

Already this month, Revolution has played host to LA bands The Icarus Line, The Hot Tramps and Pink Enemy, along with New York outfit Heartsrevolution. Upcoming Tuesday-night bills include The Happy Hollows with The Movies (February 19), Voxhaul Broadcast with Lemon Sun (February 26), My Best Fiend and The Voom Blooms (March 4), We Barbarians with Totally Radd!! (March 11) and Mighty Six Ninety (March 18).

“It’s coming fast and furious,” Pappas says. “We picked Tuesday night because it’s a dark night for Love, and a slow night in town, but maybe at some point we might also start doing Sunday-night shows for bigger acts.”

Revolution’s live nights began as local showcases, with Love Pentagon, The Skooners, The Opera and A Crowd of Small Adventures among the Vegas outfits to christen the stage set up along the wall opposite the room’s bar side. Will Indie 103.1’s involvement—the LA Viper Room’s Melissa Renee Hernandez will book the Revolution’s calendar—leave local bands out in the cold? Pappas insists not. “The local bands made us, and we’re indebted to them,” he says. “Our goal is to pair up an out-of-town band coming through with a local band, which we’ll probably begin doing sometime in April.”

Pappas says he’s also cooking up some incentives—possibly additional drink specials (Revolution currently offers 2-for-1 domestic beers and a free shot with any domestic beer), possibly a sort of permanent guest list—to ensure local music fans stick with the club as it broadens its scope. “We’re trying to figure out some cool way to reward locals,” Pappas says. “We never want to price them out.”

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